Splitting the Stolen Lands in half, the Narlmarches—or Narlmarch Woods, as they are sometimes known—sprawl across the region’s lowlands, hiding deep ravines, craggy hills, and languid streams beneath its boughs of oak, beech, and rushleaf. Within range proud herds of elk, rivercats (a mossy-furred breed of bobcat), black bears, boars, brush thylacines, and numerous breeds of especially large rodents. More unusual creatures also inhabit the forest, including giant owls, will-o’-wisps, various aggressive plant creatures, and a healthy owlbear population. Several small troll gangs also occupy the forest’s southern reaches near the Candlemere, their seclusion affording them a simple life as hunters and scavengers, though, like most of their kind, they take eager sport in ambushing weaker humanoids.

Before settlement the Narlmarches will see visits from hunters, trappers, loggers and charcoal makers.

Settlers will start to ‘manage’ trees and bushes to get the best from them. Beech will be coppiced to produce building timbers firewood and ‘sticks’ for making hurdles, and furniture. Beech trees also produce masts (nuts) that supplement the diet. Oak apples are collected to make one of the ingredients for ink while acorns can be washed, dried and ground to make coarse flour. The local raspberry also lends itself to cultivation and used for jam making.

Donkey Rats and Boar can be farmed (both are omnivores that eat anything) and during the autumn can be fattened on Acorns and beech masts from the forest floor.

Logging and charcoal making will probably be closely controlled around the settlement, although the village will act as a central point for hunters, loggers and charcoal burners.

If they find a darkwood tree its location becomes a closely guarded secret as they manage its precious resources carefully. Truffles can also be found in the Narlmarch, although they are not common, and can be exported as a delicacy.

The Tuskwater - The lake that Horcroft is built on.

Cliffs and steep hills hide this brown, rocky lake from almost every direction, though following any river through the Kamelands or Narlmarches inevitably leads to its waters. Sounders of boars frequently visit its shores and favor the thick briars and berry tangles between its western shore and the forest, these beasts granting the great arching body its name. Swelling with the spring thaw, the Tuskwater floods seasonally, spilling into swampy ravines all along its length but mainly to the west. This creates muddy gullies and pits of standing water where fierce swarms of mosquitoes, stirges, fat snakes, and assassin vines prey upon whatever falls into the quicksand-like muck. At more significant depths, the Tuskwater proves bountiful, with pike, longnose gar, bluegill, and— more dangerously—fanged eels. While fanged eels are well known for their slippery skins and vicious, painful bites, elder eels in the lake are known to grow up to 8 feet long and can ably reverse the stakes on any fisherman who tries to make a meal of them. Nevertheless, Tuskwater fanged eels are a delicacy on the tables of New Stetven in Brevoy to the north, making the reward well worth the danger.

Most settlers in this area will stick with Horcroft as a base, although there will probably be a small fishing fleet based in that city. The one luxury or export commodity from the Tuskwater are the Fanged Eels.

The Kamelands - the hills East of the Narlmarches

Rolling hills of brown and yellow grass often pocked by small caves, twisting valleys, and small woodlands that crown hilltops or nestle in clefts sprawl across the eastern Stolen Lands. The patchy, sandcolored waves of grass and dusky tarns are only broken by countless rocky mounds called kames.

With grasses ranging in height from mere inches to lashing blades over 4 feet tall, and uneven rises rife with hidden rocks, the hill country poses a daunting barrier to travel and settlement, accounting for much of the region’s continued wildness. Amid the hills and grass loom the mysterious kames. While most of these mounds of ancient stone and debris stand quiet and purposeless, in many corners of the region they display strange patterns, with mounds suggestive of waymarkers, ancient barrows, or even long-crumbled walls or foundations.

Aside from a few small herds of wild horses and goats, few large animals inhabit the Kamelands, with wolves, foxes, hares, and multitudes of rodents and snakes being the primary occupants. Frequently, wyverns from the western tors wing over the region, seeking easy prey from above, while bears, boars, owlbears, and other savage creatures from the eastern forests regularly range into the hills. While the horses of the region are reputed for their vigor and surefootedness, those from the River Kingdoms who attempt to capture such mounts often run afoul of the trolls of the southern Narlmarches, making such attempts too dangerous to regularly risk.

The Kamelands are not an inviting place to settle although a few hardy souls will do so. Settlements in the Kamelands will likely focus on sheep or horses, although there may well be mines, quarries and fishermen in settlements close to a river or lake. Blue Wolfberries are one of the few things that grow prolifically in these hills, although various root vegetables can will grow as well.

Candlemere - The small lake below Tuskwater.

Leaves from the Narlmarches collect year round within the clear depths of the Candlemere. In spring and summer, the lake reflects the colors trapped below in vibrant greens and rainbow bursts of f lowering hues. By autumn, fiery reds, oranges, and yellows blaze through the water. In winter, the oft-frozen surface hides depthless blacks that make the lake appear as unfathomable as the night sky. Legends say that drinking from the Candlemere can, depending on the season, grant long life, cut a life short, intoxicate, or invigorate. In the middle of the lake lies a hilly island covered in mysterious willows, surrounding the ruins of an ancient, crumbling tower. Eerie witchlights glow above the tower on summer nights, and will-o’-wisps congregate here throughout the fall, perhaps holding eerie councils or plotting whatever motivates their inscrutable deeds.

Plains

The grasslands and moors of the Stolen Lands vary from relatively open plains to swaths of tall grass that grows up to 3 feet high in places. Small copses of two to six trees are not uncommon.